Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN!
Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2019.

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Friday, December 25, 2015

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 104: A Two Year Recap

Amy Johnson Crow suggested a weekly blog theme of "52 Ancestors" in her blog post Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks on the No Story Too Small blog. I extended this theme in 2015 to 104 Ancestors in 104 Weeks. I started with my eight great-grandparents, then did my second, third and fourth great-grandparents in ahnentafel number order. Last week, I finished my 4th great-grandparents with #127, Sarah (Martin) Putman (1792-1860). I have collected all of these posts on my Ancestor Biographies page (http://www.geneamusings.com/p/ancestor-biographies.html).

I am not writing a post this week because it is Christmas Day. Now, I'm wondering if I should continue with the 5th great-grandparents. There are potentially 128 persons on that list, so it should take about two years (since I don't know all 128 persons, I only know about 100). The benefits of doing the 52 Ancestors posts the way I'm doing it are:* I revisit each ancestor, review the paper and digital information that I have for them, and look for material that I may have missed.* I search Ancestry, FamilySearch, FamilySearch Family Tree, Findmypast, MyHeritage, Geni, Mocavo, Fold3, Google Search, and Google Books for online records that I may have missed over the years.* I critically review the names, relationships, events, dates, places, media and sources for the person, and try to make them as uniform and consistent as possible (so that the information for the person is consistent with other persons). * I write Fact Notes for many of the Events, then integrate them into the General Notes for the person in a somewhat chronological order. * I create an Individual Narrative report in RootsMagic that I can copy and edit into the 52 Ancestors weekly blog post, including source notations.This process is very beneficial for me - I think critically about each person, I discover more material, I make my notes and sources more complete and consistent, and I provide a narrative report for each ancestor which serves as Cousin Bait for other researchers and probably cousins. It provides a theme post for Friday mornings on Genea-Musings! I feel like I am advancing my family history research each week.

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1 comment:

Randy,I have looked forward to your Friday postings since they started. They have encouraged me to look again at my ancestors. I have been following along with you and doing a life story of each of my many grandparents. I have used Roots Magic and kept in the same order you have. Lets continue, I am enjoying the process and I have loved my visit with each grandparent along the way. I have added children, newspaper clippings and I have digitized everything along the way. The next group will be much more challenging and I am looking forward to it. In my mind there was no question you would continue.

Genealogy Jamboree 2019

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About Me

I am a native San Diegan, a graduate of San Diego State University, a retired aerospace engineer, a genealogist and a family guy.
My wife (Angel Linda) and I have two lovely daughters, and five darling grandchildren. We love to visit them and have them visit us.
Angel Linda and I love to travel to visit friends and relatives, to sightsee, to cruise or to do genealogy. Our travels have taken us all over the USA, to England, Down Under and Scandinavia.
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